The University of West Florida Historic Trust invites the community to Historic Pensacola’s 26th Annual Open House on Saturday, June 4, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. All venues and events are free and open to the public.
Activities will include the grand opening of the Appleyard Storytelling Cottage, an exhibit featuring Pensacola’s premier storyteller, John Appleyard, at 10 a.m. The exhibit, located at the McMillan House in Historic Pensacola Village, 213 E. Zaragoza St., features many of Appleyard’s stories and celebrates his numerous contributions to the community. He worked with Cox Communications to record 51 different stories, some featuring a 15-minute episode and some including multiple episodes and lasting as long as 90 minutes. Select stories will be available as a part of the exhibit.
The Open House also covers admission to Historic Pensacola Village, the T. T. Wentworth Jr. Museum, the Pensacola Children’s Museum and Voices of Pensacola presented by Gulf Power. Guided tours of Old Christ Church, the Dorr House, the Lavalle House and the Lear/Rocheblave House will be offered every 30 minutes from 10 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. Living history demonstrations interpreting life in Colonial Pensacola will be held throughout the day in the Historic Pensacola Village. Demonstrations include broom and candle making, leatherworking, woodcarving, butter churning, bee keeping and more.
The Hilton-Green Resource Room, which maintains an extensive collection of archival materials available to the public for research, will also be open for visitors to tour. The resource room is located on the second floor of Voices of Pensacola, located at 117 E. Government St. Children are invited to visit the Pensacola Children’s Museum to meet Climie and Coconut the Clowns and participate in the “Passport to the Past Scavenger Hunt†for a chance to win a free, private birthday party at the museum.
Additional organizations participating in the Open House include the UWF Archaeology Institute, Florida Public Archaeology Network, the Pensacola Archaeological Society, the UWF Office of Equity and Diversity, the Flora-Bama Cutups and the Mobile Medical Museum. The Historic Pensacola complex is located between Plaza Ferdinand and Seville Square from Church Street South to Bayfront Parkway. For more information, visit historicpensacola.org.
